n the year 2013,
Development Alternatives expanded its footprint further in the Bundelkhand
region and initiated activities in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh.
Though the district is not one of the thirteen districts that are together
known as Bundelkhand, the agro-ecological and socio-economic context in
Shivpuri and therefore the challenges for rural development in the district
are very similar in nature to that of Bundelkhand. With about a third of the
population belonging to scheduled castes and tribes and nearly half of the
rural population falling below the poverty line, the chronic drought
conditions wreak havoc on the farm based livelihoods of the people.

It is in this context that the
project ‘Access to Water for Sustainable Livelihoods’ was initiated in three
villages of Pichhore block of Shivpuri with the support of The Coca-Cola
Foundation and with the objective of improving water resources and
availability for enhancing livelihood security of the communities in these
three villages. The hypothesis for the intervention was simple – water
security was the most critical factor compromising livelihood security and
holding back development in these villages, and so it was of paramount
importance to first invest in improving the water resources. The natural
resource base thus secured would provide the platform for livelihood
enhancement based on integrated approaches that optimise resource efficiency
and thereby yield sustainable outcomes.

Angad, a young man from the village
of Dulhai, was educated but unemployed but he displayed a positive outlook
towards testing and adopting new approaches and technologies on his farm. He
was one of the first to adopt the agro-forestry based model and plant guava
and amla trees on his farm while utilising the spaces between the
trees for vegetable farming.

While the fruits trees would take a
few years to mature and yield fruit, the returns from the vegetables were
immediate and this encouraged Angad to explore ways to enhance his farm
production even further. Adoption of organic fertlisers and the improved
availability of soil moisture slowly nurtured back the health and
productivity of the farm.

Having tasted success, Angad is now
setting his sights higher. He has already started fish farming in his farm
pond and is also volunteering for pilot testing of a household biogas unit.
The possibilities for resource and nutrient cycling between these multiple
activities promises to demonstrate an exciting model of an integrated
farming system.

Today, Angad is a proud farmer. He
has not only realised multiple revenues from his erstwhile unproductive farm
but is also actively influencing his peer farming community to adopt similar
approaches. It would perhaps not be wrong to consider him a social
entrepreneur. With young farmers like Angad taking a lead, the future of
agriculture in our country can be very bright.

The intervention in its first year
focused on establishing water and soil conservation structures and formation
and capacity building of community institutions such as women’s self help
groups and farmers’ clubs. In the second and third year, the focus has been
on livelihood development and systems for ensuring that the benefits are
sustained through community based systems.

The abundant rains in this year have allowed the full
potential of the water conservation structures to be utilised and ground
water recharge to take place and subsequent rise in water levels in wells in
the post monsoon period has been recorded. Over one lakh cubic litres of
water has been conserved and atleast 700 families have directly benefited in
terms of access to water, climate resilience and livelihood enhancement.

The intervention effectively demonstrates not only the
critical importance of securing the natural resource base, especially in
climate affected regions, but also the need for undertaking in parallel
livelihood enhancement activities that enable the translation of the secure
natural resources into socio-economic outcomes so that the communities are
motivated to continue to take stewardship of the natural resources.■